Special Requirements

Special Requirements

FY 2009 HHS Enterprise IT Fund—PMA e-GOV Initiatives

The AHRQ will contribute $255,000 of its FY 2009 budget to support Department enterprise information technology initiatives as well as the President's Management Agenda (PMA) Expanding E-Government initiatives. Operating Division contributions are combined to create an Enterprise Information Technology (EIT) Fund that finances both the specific HHS information technology initiatives identified through the HHS Information Technology Capital Planning and Investment Control process and the PMA initiatives. These HHS enterprise initiatives meet cross-functional criteria and are approved by the HHS IT Investment Review Board based on funding availability and business case benefits. Development is collaborative in nature and achieves HHS enterprise-wide goals that produce common technology, promote common standards, and enable data and system interoperability. The HHS Department initiatives also position the Department to have a consolidated approach, ready to join in PMA initiatives.

Of the amount specified above, $78,327 is allocated to support the President's Management Agenda Expanding E-Government initiatives for FY 2009. This amount supports the PMA E-Government initiatives as follows:

Prospective benefits from these initiatives are:

Grants.gov: Allows HHS to publish grant funding opportunities and application packages online while allowing the grant community (state, local and tribal governments, education and research organizations, non-profit organization, public housing agencies and individuals) to search for opportunities, download application forms, complete applications locally, and electronically submit applications using common forms, processes and systems. In FY 2007, HHS posted over 1,000 packages and received 108,436 application submissions—more than doubling 52,088 received in FY 2007 with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) substantially increasing its applications submissions from 47,254 to 89,439 submissions. AHRQ continues to migrate to Grants.gov in accordance with the NIH established timeline.

Lines of Business (LoB)—Federal Health Architecture: Creates a consistent Federal framework that improves coordination and collaboration on national Health Information Technology (HIT) Solutions; improves efficiency, standardization, reliability and availability to improve the exchange of comprehensive health information solutions, including health care delivery; and, to provide appropriate patient access to improved health data. HHS works closely with federal partners, State, local and tribal governments, including clients, consultants, collaborators and stakeholders who benefit directly from common vocabularies and technology standards through increased information sharing, increased efficiency, decreased technical support burdens and decreased costs. AHRQ participates in all departmental FHA activities and is prepared to leverage any and all agency appropriate information shared as a result of this effort.

Lines of Business—Human Resources Management: Provides standardized and interoperable human resources (HR) solutions utilizing common core functionality to support the strategic management of Human Capital. HHS has been selected as a Center of Excellence and will be leveraging its HR investments to provide services to other Federal agencies.

Lines of Business—Grants Management (GMLOB): Supports end-to-end grants management activities promoting improved customer service; decisionmaking; financial management processes; efficiency of reporting procedure; and, post-award closeout actions. An HHS agency, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), is a GMLOB consortia lead, which has allowed ACF to take on customers external to HHS. These additional agency users have allowed HHS to reduce overhead costs for internal HHS users. Additionally, NIH is an internally HHS-designated Center of Excellence and has applied to be a GMLOB consortia lead. This effort has allowed HHS agencies using the NIH system to reduce grants management costs. Both efforts have allowed HHS to achieve economies of scale and efficiencies, as well as streamlining and standardization of grants processes, thus reducing overall HHS costs for grants management systems and processes. AHRQ participates in all grants management solutions applicable to the agency.

Lines of Business—Financial Management: Supports efficient and improved business performance while ensuring integrity in accountability, financial controls and mission effectiveness by enhancing process improvements; achieving cost savings; standardizing business processes and data models; promoting seamless data exchanges between Federal agencies; and, strengthening internal controls.

Lines of Business—Budget Formulation and Execution: Allows sharing across the Federal government of common budget formulation and execution practices and processes resulting in improved practices within HHS.

Integrated Acquisition Environment for Loans and Grants: Managed by the General Services Administration (GSA), all agencies participating in the posting and/or awarding of Loans and Grants are required by the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA) to disclose award information on a publicly accessible Web site. Cross-government cooperation with the Office of Management and Budget's Integrated Acquisition Environment initiative in determining unique identifiers for Loans & Grants transactions furthers the agency in complying with the Transparency Act, which enhances transparency of federal program performance information, funding, and Loans & Grants solicitation.

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Exhibit 300: Capital Asset Plan and Business Case Summaries

AHRQ's FY 2009 Exhibit 300: Capital Asset Plan and Business Case Summaries will be posted on the HHS Web site by February 19, 2008. The URL is http://www.hhs.gov/exhibit300.

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Unified Financial Management System—Operations and Maintenance (UFMS O&M)

The Program Support Center, through the Service and Supply Fund, manages the ongoing Operations and Maintenance (O&M) activities for UFMS. The scope of O&M services includes post deployment support and ongoing business and technical operations services, as well as an upgrade of Oracle software from version 11.5.9 to version 12.0. AHRQ will use $1,116,614 for these O&M costs in FY 2009.

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HHS Consolidated Acquisition System (HCAS)

The HHS Consolidated Acquisition System (HCAS) initiative is a Department-wide contract management system that will integrate with the Unified Financial Management System (UFMS). The applications within the HCAS are Compusearch PRISM and a portion of the Oracle Compusearch Interface (OCI). PRISM is a federal contract management system that streamlines the procurement process. PRISM automates contract writing, simplified acquisitions, electronic approvals and routing, pre-award tracking, contract monitoring, post award tracking, contract closeout and reporting. AHRQ will use $80,626 to support the completion of HCAS implementation in FY 2009.

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